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According to an investigation by the daily Estadão, the superintendent Rodrigo Santos Alves, appointed by the current Minister of the Environment of Brazil, Ricardo Salles, in command of Ibama in Bahia, was responsible for the cancellation of the fine of 7.5 million reais (1.19 million euros) requested by the agency’s technicians against the hotel and for the cancellation of the provision that paralyzed the works.
At issue is the construction of a wall on the sand near the hotel, to contain the erosion process. However, environmental experts argue that this type of structure, buried in the sand, compromises the breeding of sea turtles in the area, which tend to move to the region to lay their eggs.
The resort is located on the same beach as Projeto Tamar, a marine animal protection program of the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio), which, like Ibama, is linked to the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment.
Last July, after an on-site inspection, technicians from Ibama, the government agency responsible for the country’s environmental protection policies, assessed the Tivoli Ecoresort and ordered the embargo of “any activity related to the construction of a strip of sand in Praia doimpresa “.
The Union Heritage Secretariat (SPU), a body linked to the Ministry of Planning, had also already started work for the same reason, according to Estadão.
However, last September, Rodrigo Santos Alves decided to reverse the previous positioning of the driving body, claiming that the hotel already has an environmental license issued by the municipality of Mata de São João.
“The licensor must balance the complex and often conflicting values between the environmental impact and the importance of the activity or company, always aiming to promote a ‘productive and pleasant harmony between human beings and their environment'”, he justified the superintendent in his decision, quoted by the Brazilian newspaper.
Also according to Santos Alves, who is a partner of a real estate company that operates in the offer of luxury properties on the coast of Bahia, the “low environmental impact of the project” and the “socio-economic importance of the project” were taken into account, supporting that Ibama did not fit “the role of the corregidor in the municipal process” and its local licenses.
In a statement, the hotel group defended that the aim of the works is to contain the advance of the sea on the hotel structure, adding that interventions of the same type have already taken place in the region and that the works in question are taking place. within the property area.
The Tivoli chain is part of the Hotelier Minor Hotels group and currently manages 13 properties in Portugal, Brazil and Qatar.
In September, Minister Ricardo Salles, whose management is heavily criticized by environmentalists, caused controversy in the country by excluding mangroves and vegetation from the country’s beaches from the list of environmental protection areas.
Environmentalists have assessed that the conservation regulations eliminated by Salles meet the demands of the real estate sector, as well as the hotel and agri-food sector, interested in exploring areas whose occupation was prohibited.
Last year, another Portuguese hotel group, Vila Galé, caused controversy when it intended to build a “resort” on an indigenous reserve, including in the Brazilian state of Bahia.
However, after several criticisms and political and social pressures, the Vila Galé group decided to abandon the project.
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